Burn­ing alive teenage girl alarms hu­man­ity

ISLAMABAD— Chair­man Pak­istan Ulema Council Hafiz Muham­mad Tahir Mehmood Ashrafi in a con­dem­na­tion state­ment re­gard­ing bru­tal mur­der of teenage girl, who was burned alive few days back in Abbottabad on al­leged de­ci­sion of ‘ Jirga’ said that el­e­ments ac­com­plice in ‘ honor killing’ not only be con­victed in mur­der case but also in­dicted un­der sec­tions for mak­ing vi­o­lence in so­ci­ety.

Burn­ing alive a teenage girl on as­sump­tions of sus­pect is sheer ig­no­rance and such sort of ex­trem­ist think­ing is very alarm­ing not only for gov­ern­ment but also for the en­tire so­ci­ety, said Hafiz Tahir Ashrafi adding that Is­lam has cat­e­gor­i­cally de­fined rights for women for ev­ery sit­u­a­tion and oc­ca­sion and as­so­ci­at­ing out­dated cus­toms and prac­tices with Is­lam is noth­ing ex­cept abysmal ig­no­rance.

Talk­ing to a vis­it­ing del­e­gate of Pak­istan Ulema Council Women Chap­ter here Sun­day, Chair­man Pak­istan Ulema Council Hafiz Muham­mad Tahir Mehmood Ashrafi said that it is re­spon­si­bil­ity of Ule­mas, Mashaykh, Imams and re­li­gious schol­ars to ed­u­cate gen­eral pub­lic on rights of women as ad­vo­cated in Qu­ran and Sun­nah.

In­ci­dents re­lat­ing vi­o­lence against women have been re­port­edly in­creased dur­ing last cou­ple of months as peo­ple con­victed of vi­o­lence against women man­aged to escape pun­ish­ments and amidst this sce­nario, the gov­ern­ment need to look over this sce­nario se­ri­ously, said Hafiz Tahir Ashrafi. He also said that ow­ing to out­dated cus­toms girls are be­ing de­prived of ed­u­ca­tion and ow­ing to dowry prac­tices thou­sands of girls are get pass­ing their mat­ri­mo­nial age and amidst this sit­u­a­tion killing of girls on ac­count of ‘ honor’ is very de­plorable act.

Dar- ul- Afta’ Wing of Pak­istan Ulema Council has al­ready sub­mit­ted its sug­ges­tions to Pun­jab Gov­ern­ment on ‘ Women Pro­tec­tion Bill’, and this is need of the time that in­stead of politi­ciz­ing this bill, re­li­gious or­ga­ni­za­tions should come for­ward with their rec­om­men­da­tions and pro­pos­als over this bill, said Hafiz Muham­mad Tahir Mehmood Ashrafi. Chair­man Pak­istan Ulema Council Hafiz Muham­mad Tahir Mehmood Ashrafi also an­nounced on this oc­ca­sion to ob­serve first Juma of Ra­mazan- ul- Mubarak as ‘ Women Pro­tec­tion Day’ and dur­ing ser­mons.